This invention relates to a method of manufacturing carbon fiber reinforced compound materials. More particularly, it relates to a heating step under a pressure in such method for having binders which have been impregnated to carbon fibers, infusible and also for having them carbonized.
Such method conventionally comprises a step for having a great number of carbon fibers applied with or impregnated by binders such as thermosetting resins including phenol, or furan resins and the like, and thermoplastic resins including pitch and the like, a step for shaping them, and a heating step for having the binders carbonized and consequently infusible under a pressure within a mold or gas atmosphere.
In such method, particularly in its heating step which is carried out under a pressure within a mold or gas atmosphere, a heating furnace employed for said heating step requires specific structures for exerting the pressure. Especially, in the heating step in which the pressure is exerted through the mold, it is extremely difficult though not impossible to exert such pressure onto a carbon fiber compound, if the compound is subjected to said heating step by having it moved continuously through a continuous heating furnace.